


dreams are for suckers, you know.

by MostlyFandomTrash



Series: there's a reason they call it a tragedy. [7]
Category: Greek and Roman Mythology, Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Mortal, Los Angeles, Minor Character Death, Minor Character(s), New York City
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-08-09 05:36:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16443884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MostlyFandomTrash/pseuds/MostlyFandomTrash
Summary: they are fifteen when thier uncle dies and their house falls apart.or; the oneiroi, and moving on.





	dreams are for suckers, you know.

**dreams are for suckers, you know.**

 

/

 

If he could, they think their father would lock them up in their room and never let them out. “It's a good thing Mom is in charge, then, isn't it?” Phantasos laughs, when Morpheus brings the point up, and Phobetor nods in agreement.

 

The three boys watch through the kitchen window as Hypnos tucks a flower behind Pasithea's ear, and kisses her cheek. The woman taps him on the forehead, hands covered in flour.

 

“Thea!” Their father groans, and their mother laughs. “You love me, Darling.”

 

/

 

The summer when the triplets turn ten is when their uncle dies, and it very well breaks their house apart. Aunt Eris is still in the living room, shouting at Dad, and she's been here for at least two hours. “You we're supposed to protect him, Hypnos!”

 

“Get the fuck out, Eris!” It's Hypnos, and Phobetor can tell from the sound of his voice that he's tired of this, of the fighting. “You have no fucking right to yell at me in my own house, and you sure as hell don't have the right to tell me about my own goddamn brother.  _ Get out _ .”

 

“You all think we're not the least bit like Dad. Here's a shocker; you're  _ wrong _ .” There's the sound of something crashing and shattering against the wall, and the door slams as their aunt leaves. The boys come downstairs, and it's the first time they ever see their father cry.

 

“Boys,” Pasithea says from the kitchen, not looking away from the man with clenched fists who is her husband, “go to bed.”

 

“But-” and “Mom-” and “Is Dad o-”

 

“Now.”

 

/

 

A few days later, when their cousin Phillip shows up, they start packing. The boys don't want to move, but they don't say this.

 

“Hey, Pho?”

 

The middle brother turns around, raising an eyebrow at his younger counterpart. “Yeah? What's up, Morph?”

 

“What do you think Aunt Eris meant about Dad being like Grandpa?”

 

“No idea, but it must be pretty bad if it's shaken him up this much.”

 

Morpheus shakes his head, and grabs his headphones from the table, sliping them on his neck. “We would've moved anyways. You know him, Dad couldn't have stood being here anymore; not without Uncle Thanatos.”

 

/

 

Their new home takes them to New York (two thousand, seven hundred, and ninety miles away), and the boys don't ask why they went so far. They already know; there's more blood in St. Deity, California for their family than anyone from the town would care to admit.

 

/

 

Everyone knows who Erebus Mortem is, and how he died -- the story was on the news for almost a month; at only sixteen, Thanatos Mortem went to jail for three days before he was released by majority vote of the local jury.

 

St. Deity, California was covered in the blood of the Mortem family, no matter how much they tried to hide it -- Eris still flinched at loud noises and raised hands; still, Charon woke saying the names of siblings he hadn't really known in years; neither the twins could reprimand their children without stopping halfway through and walking away; Hemera always slept like she'd have to wake up and run; and Eos, the youngest of them all, clung to her siblings (what was left of them, anyways) as if they'd disappear when she let go.

 

/

 

“Aunt Pasithea?” Phillip says, coming into the kitchen and sitting on the edge of the counter. The woman looks up, “Yeah, kiddo?”

 

“Did you and Uncle Hypnos move all the way out here because of my dad dying?”

 

Pasithea blinks slowly for a few moments, then lets out a sigh. “Yes, we moved out here because of Thanatos. I don't know what your mom and dad told you about-”

 

“About Erebus?” He broke in, and leaned back against the cabinets. “Dad told me he was a real bastard, and I should never ask Grandma about him.”

 

“You'd be right to listen to him.”

 

“But. . . why?” The question breaks from the boy's lips before he can stop it, and then it doesn't stop. “Dad would never tell me, and now he can't tell me at all. What was so bad about Erebus? He was their dad, wasn't he?”

 

The woman opened her mouth as if to speak, but closed it and shook her head. His aunt -- quite possibly his favorite, right next to Eos -- instead reached out and ran a hand through his dark hair. “You're asking stuff I can't answer on my own, kiddo.”

 

“Then, who am supposed to ask?”

 

“Try your uncle. He might tell you.”

 

/

 

When the door to their new room, the triplets looked up in simultaneous horror and then questioning as they see it's only their cousin.

 

“So,” Morpheus says, and he's the first to break the silence that settled in as soon as Phillip fell onto his bed with a loud groan. “What did you find out?”

 

“Nothing really, your mom wouldn't tell me a damn thing.” The darker haired boy mumbles, and sits up to lean against the wall next to his youngest cousin. “But she knows, I can tell.”

 

Phobetor blinks. “She didn't tell you anything?”

 

“Just to ask Uncle Hypnos.”

 

Phantasos rolls his eyes from where he's sitting on the floor by the window. “Then what are you sitting in here for? Go ask him.”

 

“I. . . I'm not sure what I'm supposed to ask him, honestly.”

 

When none of the triplets open their mouths to say anything, Phillip continues. “My dad died. It was his week for me to come over and he got into a wreck on his stupid motorcycle and he died. No one even told me, not until I got to his house and Aunt Eos was sitting on the couch (that's not an unusual thing, obviously, but I know Dad was usually sitting there beside her, and he wasn't this time. . .) and she was crying and when she saw me, she started crying harder.

 

I don't know what I'm supposed to ask him, guys. What am I supposed to ask him?”

 

None of them know what to say to that, to him (they haven't talked about Uncle Thanatos much, and they don't think they really know how). Instead, they all crawl onto Morpheus’ bed and sit next to Phillip as cold tears fall from his face.

 

/

 

Suddenly, the summer is over and they're forced to say goodbye to Phillip. He smiles at them when they stop at the airport (his mom is waiting for him on the other side in Los Angeles, of course, but they still don't want to lose him). Hypnos turns, facing his nephew in the passenger seat one more time before he disappears back to Los Angeles, back to St. Deity (back to a life where his dad’s death is more prominent than it ever was here). “Phillip, you tell your mom I said hey.”

 

“I will, Uncle Hypnos.”

 

“And give her a hug for me!” Morpheus breaks out, leaning up from the backseat. “Please?” He adds after a moment of his own father looking back at him.

 

“Gotcha.”

 

His uncle sighs and shakes his head, then leans over and mutters something in Phillip’s ear. The boy blinks and then he grins. “Bye,” and then he’s gone.

 

/

 

“What'd you tell Phillip before he left, Dad?”

 

Hypnos looks up from his desk. Even out here, all the way in New York, he is the only one who has the mental patience enough to fill out his twin's information. Two out of three of his sons are standing in the doorway to his new study and Phobetor looks unusually uneasy, something Hypnos doesn't see very often. “What was that, kiddo?”

 

“When we dropped him off at the airport, you said something to Phillip. In his ear. What did you say?” Phantasos pipes up from behind his younger brother, and braces his hand against the doorframe, a habit he most likely picked up from watching he and Pasithea. “Was it about Uncle Thanatos?”

 

The two boys watch as their father slowly sets down the forms he's filling out and leans back in his chair. “That's-”

 

“None of our business?” Phobetor cuts in, and raises his eyebrow in a way that is so very reminiscent of his older twin that Hypnos blinks at his sons for a few moments before giving an answer. “It was about your grandfather, my dad.”

 

“Erebus?” The older boy asks and Hypnos almost stops himself from flinching. The man nods, and as he leans forward in his chair, he starts to speak.

 

“Your grandpa was a bastard.” The two glance at each other and then back at their dad. “He really, really was. I'm not sure when he started drinking; from what Ker and Charon told us, it was before your Uncle Moros died and it was before your Aunt Eos was born. He was drunk a lot, boys, so much so that I don't think I could remember a day of my life when I saw him sober if I tried as hard as I possibly could.

 

When he was mad (and trust me, he was mad at us a lot, sometimes for no reason at all other than we were in the room), he might have thrown things at the walls or at us or maybe he would've just hit us. We didn't have friends over, me and your aunts and uncles, we couldn't. There were rules in that house, rules that had to be followed if you wanted to stay in the background where he couldn't find you.”

 

“What were they?” The youngest of the triplets had appeared in the time it took for him to start speaking, and Hypnos jumped at the sound of his voice. He hadn't noticed him come in.

 

“Don't leave after dark, your Uncle Charon broke that one a lot, after he met Styx. She was our neighbor, back then. Eris,” the older man paused at his older sister's name, “Eris was a lot quieter than the rest of us, if you can believe it. After Moros died, she just shut down, I guess.”

 

“How did Uncle Moros die?”

 

“One story at a time, boys.” He gave his children a weak smile. “But Moros died when me and Thanatos were about 9, Nemesis ran away around then too, and Eris shut herself down. I think that's when the drinking got worse.”

 

“Worse?” / “How could it get worse?” / “Huh?”

 

“Let me talk. The drinking got worse, and Eos was. . . one? Two? I don't remember, but. . . Ma-”

 

“Grandma Nyx?”

 

He nods. “Yeah, Grandma Nyx. She started leaving for long periods of time, weeks or so. She just left us with him, we had learn how to take care of a toddler (two really, since Hemera was only three) in a short span. We did it, though.” There's a moment where Hypnos pauses again and then he closes his eyes. “Is that all, boys?”

 

“What-” Morpheus starts to ask a question, but he's stopped by Phantasos placing a hand over his younger brother's mouth. “That's all we wanted to know. Thanks, Dad.”

 

“Go get ready for dinner before your mom finishes.”

 

Three different but seemingly identical voices speak at the same time. “Yes sir.”

 

/

 

Hypnos sits in his office for a long while after the boys leave. He tries not to cry, he's done enough of that in the last month to last him a lifetime.

 

/

 

The triplets are ten years old when their uncle Thanatos dies, and they are ten years old when the results of his death practically pulls their family apart. Ten years old and they move across the country just to get away from the amount of their blood that has been spilled in their hometown, ten years old and they watch their father cry.

 

/

 

The triplets are ten years old when they learn about their grandpa, and they are ten years old when they decide that he was wrong.

 

They are ten years old and St Deity, California doesn't feel much like home anymore, not like it used to, not after what they've learned.

 

/

 

**fin**.

**Author's Note:**

> i wasn't very happy with the ending for this but,,, i posted it anyways because i didn't know how to fix it. hope you all like it better than i did.


End file.
